Baker Academic

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Jesus and Divorce (Part II) - Le Donne

Last week I asked a general question about Jesus' seemingly over-the-top stance on divorce. In short, Jesus seems to take a more rigid stance on divorce than any of his Jewish contemporaries (cf. Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18; 1 Cor 7:10-11). The discussion that followed was interesting, if at times off topic. Here is, perhaps, a novel take on the topic. I trust my readers to let me know if I'm unwittingly echoing someone else.

If we accept (a) that many of Jesus’ disciples had left their wives behind to follow him and (b) that women were included in Jesus’ following (some known in their own right; not attached to a particular male), could this provide the context for Jesus’ strange teaching about divorce?

Given Jesus’ praise of eunuchs and those who have left their wives and houses behind, it comes as no surprise to hear him discourage remarriage. After all, Jesus seems to have an aberrant view on marriage and family.

Could it be that he was discouraging his male disciples (who had left wives behind) from marrying the female followers with whom they traveled? In other words, perhaps Jesus is saying, “So you’ve left your wives behind to follow me; great! But don’t use that as justification for divorcing your wives to marry one of your new traveling companions!” Please keep in mind that "leaving" one's wife behind and legally divorcing one's wife were two very different things - the latter being devastating for many women.

This possible reading would also help to explain this saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman [or just "wife"] with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:27-28). Dale Allison has suggested that this saying suggests a moderate form of asceticism on Jesus' part. But maybe Jesus is just trying to keep his disciples from exploiting their newly formed "family".

13 comments:

You are suggesting that Jesus promulgated a rule forbidding divorce and remarriage, apparently making the rule applicable to millions of Jews, in order to keep his 12 disciples in line? That doesn't make sense to me. Certainly Jesus was capable of setting rules applicable only to his disciples. The fact that Jesus made these rules applicable to all (Jews) suggests to me that Jesus' concerns here went beyond (re)marriage among his immediate followers.

You suggest that Jesus wanted to discourage his male disciples from marrying his female followers, but you’re not saying why this should be of concern to Jesus unless (as Allison suggests) Jesus was moderately ascetic. People get married all the time; generally, we think this is cause for celebration. Why would Jesus have felt differently?

Should we consider WHY Jesus would have had women in his travelling party? The answer I usually hear is that these women supported Jesus financially. That is as may be, but that doesn't explain why Jesus' financiers had to travel with him. I know little about the subject of patronage in the first century, but I think that wealthy women frequently acted as patrons, and few of them traveled with the objects of their patronage.

1. I think your attempt to interpret Jesus' actions in the context of his itinerant ministry is an appropriate endeavor. Thus, his immediate situation and those of the disciples could indeed have served as an impetus for these types of sayings.

2. However, this suggestion would require more dialogue with the Mosaic typology at work in the Sermon on the Mount. Is Jesus uttering general axioms/laws here that need not necessarily have a specific (itinerant) impetus?

3. Moreover, a few words on the make-up of these "crowds" (5:1) convening to hear Jesus' teaching would be needed. Surely, some of these people had indeed not left family to follow Jesus but could indeed be sympathizers with Jesus--what specific import (if any) would these sayings have for them? To borrow from Keith's terminology in regards to literacy, the "gradations" of the crowds/audience ( I think) deserves attention. But, the words we speak (and the words of the Sermon the Mount) are not always directed towards everyone who listens.

Nevertheless, I think you're on to something compelling (I myself have thought the same thing many times), even though I wouldn't necessarily label Jesus' views on marriage and family as "aberrant," as if there existed a singular standard on the issue in the 1st century.

we should not overlook evidence suggesting that Peter and at least some of the other disciples did not divorce / leave their wives / embrace celebacy ("Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?" 1 Cor 9:5)

perhaps it then becomes necessary to inquire about the Gospel statements about divorce in the later attitudes of the Evangelists...(?)

We should not overlook evidence that Cephas and the other disciples reportedly had wives ("Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?" 1 Cor 9:5).

I agree with Allison vis-a-vis Jesus' asceticism. The way I read this (especially in the context of Mt. 19:12--see my upcoming chapter in _Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages_!) is that Jesus is essentially saying, in the eschatological age, there is no need for reproduction, and thus marriage has served its primary purpose. Divorce, in Jewish tradition, was first and foremost a recourse when the marriage failed to produce offspring (the Rabbis even debated why Abraham didn't divorce Sarah as was REQUIRED to by the Law...). The OTHER reason would be the desire to have another sexual partner. Neither of these would be legitimate motivations in the eyes of an apocalyptic Jesus. Thus his concession allowing divorce without remarriage makes sense: if you can't stand being around each other, you can end the marriage, but don't start a new one just to satisfy your lust.

I tend to side with Dale Martin on this: if Jesus had ascetic tendencies, he is a very strange ascetic. In almost every other respect, Jesus seems almost hedonistic. This might suggest that Jesus (or Matthew's Jesus) is pushing back against a particular perception of him and his disciples.

No doubt, you're simplifying things because this a blog comment. It should be said that the rabbis' conversations about legal separation are much more complicated than you suggest.

It's an apocalyptic asceticism, which is going to be strange by dint of the axes of its dualisms. It isn't an anti-cosmic hatred of the body like you see in some later gnosticism, but simply a belief that some aspects of carnal, earthly existence (and especially attachment thereto) are becoming obsolete as this world passes away.

(And yes, the Rabbis' discussions are ALWAYS more complicated. With respect to Abraham and Sarah's situation, they went so far as to speculate if Abraham might have been a tumtum--a person with ambiguous genitalia--in the context of a wider discussion of the marital responsibilities of various intersexed categories.)

I thought the idea that Jesus taught that divorce shouldn't happen has long been abandoned? E.g. see the standard work on this Instone-Brewer's "Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: the social and literary context"

...a weblog dedicated to historical Jesus research and New Testament studies

__

Search This Blog

_______

Le Donne, Keith, Pitre, Crossley, Jacobi, Rodríguez

James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Books by the Jesus Bloggers

To purchase, follow these links

___

Jesus and the Last Supper

_____

Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text